Gifts of the Queen (39 page)

'God's wounds, do you now threaten me?' he swore. 'Call out my guard. We could ride to Cambray within the day. At its gate, see then what words you would shout out to make your men inside run to open it.'

'It would not open,' I said. 'With my last breath. I'd bid my men keep it shut.'

'Last breath,' he was breathing heavily himself. 'That's easily said. There are ways to make people talk. And Maneth Castle is full of them. Look here. 'He dragged me by the arm toward a wall on the further side of the fire. A chest stood aslant against a tapestry, and with a vicious kick, he scraped the chest aside and tore down the hangings in a shower of dust and moth. Behind them was a door, worm-eaten too, with rusted bolts that he snapped open with one hand. A cold and bitter smell gushed up from a dark stairwell, coated with green so that the very walls seemed wet, as if water seeped through them.

'Down there,' he said, staring into the darkness himself, are things you have not dreamed of.'

He let me go and waited, legs braced, staring into that dark, cruel hole. Death and despair came from it, and the silent cries of tormented men.

I know I flinched; I know I drew back, danger heavy in me like lead, the blackness so overwhelming I could not think. This is what my enemies had threatened me with when they had captured me, the place where the lords of Maneth kept their power. Fear rose like vomit in my throat.

‘The men who built and used that den were devils,’ I gasped, 'not humans. Turn away. That is no place for you, not for anyone, much less a king.' I saw indecision, yes, and fear in his own eyes, as anger struggled in them. I know few dared stand up to him, perhaps only Raoul and now myself. And perhaps his queen. I do not think many men said no to Henry of Anjou. Long ago I had been warned that granting favors, he would not forget. So now the payment must be made. So now, through me, he would have revenge. He paced and paced about. I saw how the sweat beaded his forehead under the scant fringe of hair and how he knotted his fingers so the joints cracked. I had seen his rage before, that Angevin rage which makes men work like maddened bulls, kneading their enemies into dust, grinding them. I had heard he would lie upon the ground and howl like a beast, eyes unfocused, reason gone. Such rage would take him now, so that he would not know what he did.

'I could put the name of witch on you,' he panted heavily, 'I could brand you witch and harlot. Geoffrey said you were hot beneath your skirts. Suppose we try, suppose we take Raoul's wife, spread her apart with whip and rod, would Cambray be too high a price?'

'You'd not dare,' I whispered, 'against your own law.'

'God rot your tongue,' he whispered back, 'I'll rip it out. As king, I dare all things. Who would stop me, who would know?'

A thought struck him and he paused and smiled, not his brother's smile but one I remembered from court days, older, knowing, lewd. 'Or beshrew me, perhaps Geoffrey tells the truth for once and you are already harlot hot. I have broken border wenches before, even they can be satisfied. Take off your clothes.'

'No,' I mouthed the word through dry lips.

'A third denial.' His voice had slurred with lust, those gray eyes sparked. 'On your knees before your king. Or is it,' and again he smiled, 'you prefer I take you in the Celtic way?'

Step-by-step, I drew back toward the wall as he advanced step-by-step. The blood beat in my head, no weapon at hand for defense, my little knife lost long ago at Poitiers; he unarmed, save for that ceremonial dagger; his great sword was propped beside the bed, but I had seen him rip things apart with his bare hands. Soon there was nothing behind me except the torch lights guttering in the draught from that open stairwell. The main stairs were guarded. There was no way out except down that fearful passageway. I had said I would not struggle, would not fight against fate, yet seeing it upon me, I knew I was wrong. To the end we must fight. So Raoul had fought when hope was lost, so now must I.

His feet scraped on the stone; in a moment, like a bull he would charge. I turned and fled down the steps. They were damp and slippery, thick with slime; headlong I went, fell against the side, rolled several feet, struggled up and fell again. I heard him behind me, cursing savagely as he tried to wrench a torch from the wall, tried to peer where I had gone. Battered, dazed, I came up on all fours, crept forward; the steps still went down and in the dark I followed them, step by painful step whilst now, above, he followed, equally cautiously. The room or cell where I came was small, or large—I could not tell—perhaps many rooms opening off each other or perhaps only this one. Darkness there had no shape, no sound, yet there were sounds everywhere. And evil, like a thickness you could touch, the evil of black and tortured minds working their fantasies upon other poor souls. I felt my way back until there was a wall behind me, a wall or corner or just an alcove, feeling with my fingertips along the stones as one might feel along a bloody wound, delicately, causing pain. For pain and terror dwelt here, too; I felt my flesh curdle with pity of it. And in my hand slid a thing, cold and hard and sharp. God put it there, and what it was I do not know, but with it, I was saved.

He had come clattering down the rest of the steps, still alone, and stood there blinking in the dark. I waited in my corner, hugging my weapon to my breast. Along my arms, my sides, the bruises burned and throbbed; there was blood upon my cheek running into my mouth, but all I felt was a sudden great surge of relief that I should have the means to be free of him.

'So there you are,' he snarled and came toward me, 'so anxious to meet old friends, you run to them. But I'll have you first before they do.' He gestured around him where, in the torch shadows, all kinds of shapes, thick and heavy, loomed out of the blackness beyond. The light fell on my face, he saw me and saw what I held. It was a rusty kind of thing, twisted, black with soot, but the point was sharp.

It did not deter him.

'By God,' he said, 'you’ll not threaten me with that. Although even to threaten a king is death, that'll not kill me, but will be just cause to end your life.'

'Aye,' I said, 'so I mean it to. Stand back, Henry of Anjou. I have found means of escape that even you cannot take from me.' And I held the point fixed below my heart.

'God's teeth, hell's fire,' he cursed, saliva falling in a spray, 'God's Holy Wounds, give it me.'

On the stairs behind him, I heard men's feet running, men calling him. 'Not one step closer,' I cried, almost triumphantly, 'but let them look. Talk your way out of this, great King, a scandal and shame you'll not live down.'

I have never been so close to death I think, not by his hand, but by my own. Now, telling you, I wonder at myself to have had the strength, to have had the will, death in that way being God's greatest sin. Yet I felt then God would see and forgive, and so a peace came over me, the like I have not known before.

Not he. He stamped and swore, bid his men be gone, then called them back. They hovered like poor ghosts, half-dead themselves from fright, gaping about them.

'My death is in your hands,' I cried, when once more he tried to draw close. 'It matters little to me, only that I shall not be dishonored, or dishonor Raoul. You cannot touch him, great King, through me. What he will do is his own choice, but I will not give up Cambray, nor will I yield to you.' And I shouted those words out loudly enough so that they all would hear.

Finally, he drove his men away, walked back and forth within the circle of the one light he'd brought, gnawed his knuckles as an animal gnaws on bones.

'And when you lie dying,' I said, 'let death stop your ears. All those men you have needlessly killed or hounded to their graves will be there before you, shouting out their wrongs at God's feet. Cursed will you be. An icy Hell will make you regret the wrong you do to me and mine.'

'No,' he cried. I thought he would fling himself against me and braced myself. He shook like a man addled in all his wits, thwarted of his desire, in an agony of rage. 'Put no curse on me,' he cried. 'Cursed am I in marriage to a woman who first was my father's concubine, who sucks me dry as a winter reed. Pithless am I with her, empty, and nightly forced to service her for her needs. Aye, sons enough to breed them up against me in hate. And cursed in my kingship, won by treachery so my sons will mock me that I was born but a count and they are born the sons of a king. And cursed in my birth, dear God, cursed there, most of all that men should point at me in scorn to say my father never fathered me. I need no more curses from anyone.'

Presently, he grew calmer, hunkered down on that filthy ground, not too close, yet sitting where I could see him.

'I'll not harm you, Ann of Cambray,' he said. 'I'll not have Raoul of Sedgemont mock me too that his wife reduced me to the like of Guy of Maneth who lived here. Be done, for the sweet Virgin's sake. I am spent.'

I watched him carefully. Such protestations must hide some trick, I thought, until it dawned on me that he spoke truth. Anger such as his, such angry lust, can not endure long; each feeds upon itself. Done with, they are done, no more force or will in them.
That Angevin temper is his curse.
Finished with anger, he became a normal man. And then too, I have heard since, Henry, like many hot-tempered men, was afflicted, or blessed, with a superstitious nature, which racked him with fears. In aftertimes, I have heard it said that when he took sick, like to die, he moaned and wept, promised half his kingdom to his priests if they would intercede with God to give him back his health. Spared, he forgot those fears, and certainly forgot his promises to the Holy Church. And so I think, although he might, in time, forget any promise to me (and did, to my great harm) my words now had touched a chord, a nervousness in him; he shook with fatigue, his violent energy dispersed, as weak as a child he sat.

And then there was my position, too; a burst of energy had driven me also these last moments, hours even, since Sir Geoffrey's death. I could not stay long bound to such a pitch. The cold that had been seeping into my bones had almost crippled me. I must either use my weapon now while I had the will, or, hesitating, no longer would be capable. And in this Henry again spoke the truth; rare are men or women who, when faced with life or death, will not choose life if they can.

'Give me your word,' I said, 'swear on what you hold most dear.'

'My sword,' he said, 'there is nothing else by which I have taken and kept all that I inherited, by which I keep all that I intend to get. On my sword, I swear.' He sat back on his heels, as soldiers do, as if about to play a game of dice. I did the same, two veterans then, who had played at a game of wills, and gossiped as soldiers do. But I had still my weapon in my hand.

'And can it be true,' he said, 'that you cleave to Lord Raoul and he to you? They said it was not so, but I think it is. Then is he blessed among men.'

'We did not look for love, great King,' I said.

'Love.' He almost spat. 'Where is such a thing that does not leech the lifeblood away? See here.'

He reached beneath the lacings of his dirty tunic, fumbled with his linen shirt. Under it, he had slung a leather bag tied with a thong; inside it was golden chaplet. 'See this,' he said. He put it on his head askew. 'An ass's crown, the heavier grows the more it's worn. If I put it on, will men bow down to me? Yet I own more of the kingdom of France than the French king, I own all of England, and when I'm done. I'll be lord from the northern sea to the Mediterranean one, holder of an Angevin Empire larger than any in Christendom since the time of Charlemagne. Is one small castle too much to ask? It was not only to wreak a little vengeance or to make a little sport that I desired your presence here. I speak of lands and plans that will change our world and make or unmake it for generations to come.

'Your Raoul is a gracious man,' he said. 'There, I will admit, I could find in my heart to admire him, most of all his skills with men. They do not follow him for gain, are loyal to him because they will, not because they must. But there will be changes in this land, new ideas, new laws, new forms of government. We cannot bind ourselves to these feudal oaths, although I might like them better, too, better at least than the ones that will follow them. Although you have doubted my law, yet one day we shall rule by law, not faith. One day, men will have to decide between Lord Raoul and Henry the King and will judge us. I do not think I shall stand so ill, although my English lords look at me askance. To head an empire is not an easy task,' he said, 'I do not expect to win it easily. But win I shall in the end. And even Raoul must acknowledge that.'

‘He will acknowledge anything,' I said, 'save his dishonor.'

'Then bid him march with me when I march. The mustering is called for the seventh of July, at the salting flats. A seventh day of a seventh month in a year that ends with seven, that should shake the Celtic mysteries. We meet at Chester but I'll cross higher north at Basingwerk and take the Celts in the rear, unexpecting us. Then will there be peace as you request, then they'll cease their raids across the border plaguing us, then shall I be High King of Wales as well.'

Of all the things he said, these last words made a great impact. I felt them grow and fill my mind, like echoes of something heard long ago, like echoes in that tunnel underground, like a wind that blows . . .

I think he must have caught me as I swooned; I think perhaps he himself carried me up those stairs; I think I lay against his broad chest and heard his heart beat. I woke to find him rubbing my hands between his own. I lay upon the pile of cushions dragged before the fire and a little page with frightened face crept in with a cup of warm wine. And now I saw a Henry that I think few men have seen.

'Drink,' he said, half kind, half gruff. He pushed the cup into my hand. I have known men take cold like that before,' he said. 'In the Scottish lands, where my knighting took place, they said the winters are so cold a man can freeze as he walks. I did not think England in the summer would be so bad. Here, take off your cloak, it is wet through.'